Hans Peder Steensby


Hans Peder Steensby was an ethnographer, geographer and professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Career

Steensby was born into a family of farmers. His original name was Hans Peder Jensen, but in 1902 he changed his name to Steensby, the name of the parish where he was born. After completing his education in 1900 he moved to Copenhagen and became a teacher. In 1908 he travelled to Algeria and Tunisia, where he studied the culture of the nomads. In 1909 he lived among the Greenlandic Inuit of the Cape York area. In 1911 he became professor of Geography at the Copenhagen University. In 1913 he made a research trip to Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
During the last years of his life he became interested in the Vinland sagas and came up with a new hypothesis. He traveled to Canada in 1920 in order to further research the matter, but died a sudden death on the journey back.
Steensby never married. He was buried at the graveyard of his hometown.

Works

This is a selection of his works:
The Steensby Inlet in Canada, as well as the Steensby Glacier and Steensby Land in Greenland were named in his honour.